Author archives

Compendium of Collective OIG’s Activities in Oversight of Hurricane Disaster Response and Recovery

President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency Compendium of OIG Hurricane Oversight in the Gulf States, published 12/12/05 (18 pages, PDF). PCIE Bi-Weekly Interagency Homeland Security Roundtable Report on Hurricane Katrina Oversight, December 16, 2005. The report, and a separate Memorandum for the Record clarifying GSA’s role in providing …

Subjects: E-Government, Government Documents

Lack of Info Sharing Infrastructure Impedes Homeland Security

Press release: Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) released a report today showing that more than four years after 9/11 the federal government still does not have working systems for getting law enforcement officers the information they need to identify terrorists and to thwart their plans. The report, Beyond Connecting the Dots: A VITAL Framework for …

Subjects: Congress, E-Government, Government Documents

DHS IG Audit Identifies Major Management Problems

Department of Homeland Security, office of Inspector General report: Major Management Challenges Facing the Department of Homeland Security, December 2005 (26 pages, PDF). AP reports: Weaknesses in FEMA’s response system during Hurricane Katrina were just one symptom of major management challenges at the Homeland Security Department, an internal report issued Wednesday concludes.” See also this …

Subjects: E-Government, Government Documents

Article Analyzes Semantic Structure of Wikipedia

Analyzing and Visualizing the Semantic Coverage of Wikipedia and Its Authors, by Todd Holloway, Miran Bozicevic, Katy Börner: “This paper presents a novel analysis and visualization of English Wikipedia data. Our specific interest is the analysis of basic statistics, the identification of the semantic structure and age of the categories in this free online encyclopedia, …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Pew Internet Survey Indicates Men and Women Now Online in Equal Numbers

Press release: “A wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies. At the same time, there are trends showing that women are catching …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Government, E-Mail, Internet

NSA Website Uses Cookies Despite Prohibition

AP reports that the NSA website has continued to use cookies to track user access of the site, despite strict prohibitions against such practices: OMB Guidance for Implementing the Privacy Provisions of the E-Government Act of 2002, September 26, 2003 – Tracking technology prohibitions: agencies are prohibited from using persistent cookies or any other means …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, Government Documents, Internet, Privacy

E-Gov Portal for Contracting Underutilized By Small Businesses

Small Contractors Fail to Use Free Government Services: On August 15, 2005, the National Association of Government Contractors (NAGC) released the results of a survey of government contractors nationwide…One of the more surprising results of the survey revealed that more than half of those contractors responding to the survey were not registered with FedBizOpps.gov, the …

Subjects: E-Government

FISA Court Made Modifications to Bush Surveillance Requests

Secret court modified wiretap requests – Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel, by Stewart M. Powell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Washington Bureau. Related commentary, references and postings: Reuters: Secret surveillance up since 9/11 – “The Justice Department’s reports to the U.S. Congress on the surveillance court’s activities show that the Bush administration made 5,645 applications …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Legal Research, Privacy